One leg

I found a message from ogatodomar first thing telling me that a very old friend had died in Costa Rica; although he'd lived there for about 20 years and I can't have seen him for about 25 years, we'd got back in touch a couple of years ago. Amongst other news he mentioned that he had acquired a wooden leg as a result of a motorbike accident in Cuba. Didn't get an Xmas card this year but thought nothing of it; turns out that he'd died in November. Since he was the only person any of us knew who lived in Costa Rica, he would have been the only person who could have let us know that he'd died. RIP Tim Hodgson - I loved the old rascal dearly. I had a private ambition to go and visit him one day, in his wonderful garden up in the mountains.

A very busy day in Gateshead - there was a meeting in the morning followed by a talk from a colleague about possible implications of Scottish independence...it excited a lot of interest and discussion.

On arriving back at Edinburgh I was waiting to cross at the traffic lights when I noticed a gull doing contortions on the Iron Duke's head. The horse's name is Copenhagen and the resident gull pedant assures me that it's a lesser black-backed gull who is standing on one leg and scratching his ear.